Officials suspect disease is causing unusual number of dolphin deaths

A dolphin comes up for air while swimming in the Navesink River in Rumson in this Star-Ledger file photo. State officials suspect that naturally occuring diseases are responsible for the deaths of 21 dolphins that washed up along the coastline.Noah K. Murray -The Star Ledger

State officials suspect that a rash of dolphin deaths along New Jersey's coastline have been caused by a “natural disease cycle” unrelated to water quality, the Department of Environmental Protection announced today.

Since July 9, 21 dead or dying dolphins have washed up along the shore.

So far, the state has confirmed that four of the dolphins died of pneumonia.

A naturally occurring virus called morbillivirus – which was linked to 90 dolphin deaths in New Jersey in 1987 – has been detected in at least one dolphin corpse, while tests for it are ongoing on others.

“Dolphins swim close together in pods. Diseases spread between animals when they surface to breathe,” said Robert Schoelkopf, director of the Marine Mammal Stranding Center, said in a Department of Environmental Protection press release. “There is no evidence that the deaths we are seeing this summer are in any way related to water quality.”

Schoelkopf warned bathers not to approach the dead or dying dolphins because they can attract sharks.

The DEP said it routinely tests the water at the state’s bathing beaches and that the quality has been “excellent.”

Maggie Mooney-Seus, a spokeswoman for the Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s fisheries service for the region covering North Carolina to Maine, said there have also been an unusual number of dolphins washing up in Virginia.

“Those elevated levels for New Jersey and Virginia are just for the month of July,” she said. “ I don’t know what they’re going to look like over the course of the year.”

Mooney-Seus said her agency “may have a national lab take a look” at the test results from New Jersey.

“We certainly will be collecting information form other states as well to see if there’s any across-the-region trends,” Mooney-Seus said.